Ivan Ivanovich Borgman (24.02.1849 - 17.05.1914) was a Russian physicist. He was born in St Petersburg. He graduated from St Petersburg University (1870), where he worked (professor from 1888 and from 1901 director of the institute of physics attached to the university). He also taught at other higher educational institutions in St Petersburg. He was the first elected rector of the university (1905), but in 1910 he gave up the post in protest against the violation of students' rights by the police.
His research concerned electromagnetism, electric discharges in gases and radioactivity. He was the author of a fundamental work on electromagnetism, “The foundations of the theory of electric and magnetic phenomena” (1893 — 95). A follower and advocate of the theory of the electromagnetic field, he also adhered to the molecular-kinetic theory. Together with A. L. Gershun he discovered the influence of X-rays on an electric discharge. In 1904 he was one of the first to detect the radioactivity of Russian medicinal muds. He built a number of physical instruments.
He did much for the development of physics in Russia. In 1875 — 1900 he was editor of the first Russian journal of physics. Together with F. F. Petrushevsky he was the founder of the Institute of Physics attached to the university. In 1911, on Borgman's initiative, publication began of the non-periodical collection “New ideas in physics”. Many well-known physicists were Borgman's pupils (D. S. Rozhdestvensky, N. A. Bulgakov, B. P. Weinberg, V. K. Lebedinsky, M. A. Levitskaya, V. F. Mitkevich, L. V. Mysovsky, K. F. Nesturkh, D. A. Rozhansky, B. L. Rosing, A. I. Sadovsky, V. V. Skobeltsyn, M. A. Shatelen and others).